How to (finally) find foundation that matches your skin

Finding the right foundation for your skin can feel like nailing that just-right balance of cold brew to oat milk: basically impossible, but you keep trying anyway.

For me, “trying” has amounted to dusting on an easy-to-apply powder that probably matches my skin tone and calling it a day (I don’t think I have a future as a beauty vlogger). But as someone with blemish-prone skin, the less-is-more approach has often left me wanting a bit more coverage—making finding the right shade extra important (no one wants to be that girl whose face is a totally different color than her neck).

Coinciding with my effort to slowly give my medicine cabinet a clean-beauty makeover, I was searching for a natural foundation that would fit into my low-maintenance makeup routine, and I landed on jane iredale.

Not only did the (many) foundation options pass the no-funky ingredients test, jane iredale offers a Foundation Finder Quiz that helps you find your perfect shade without having to play trial and error a million times. And unlike other makeup quizzes that seem to spit out the same results no matter what, this one actually works.

Unlike other makeup quizzes that spit out the same results no matter what, this one actually works.

The quiz asks questions about your skin type, tone, and preferred finish, but if you’re like me and determining what your skin’s undertones are (uhh, skin colored?) leaves you feeling lost, the mineral makeup pros have a trick: Try one foundation with pink undertones and one with yellow (for jane iredale, I tried Natural and Amber). Once you identify your skin’s undertones it’s easier to find your right shade.

Another way to tell: Check the veins on your inner wrist. Green veins mean a foundation with warm or yellow undertones will probably work best for you, and cool or pink tones will work if your veins are blue.

Once you identify your skin’s undertones it’s easier to find your right shade.

Full disclosure: I skipped over those tricks and the powder color I landed on first wasn’t quite right. After a trip to the Caribbean, my skin was a shade darker than usual. But the jane iredale team easily exchanged it for the proper color under their 100 percent color match guarantee, and I was set.

Once I got the colors right, it was smooth sailing. Since a bad experience with a way-too-tacky foundation in middle school, I’ve been too scared to try liquid makeup, but with the Glow Time BB Cream, blending was a breeze, and it even stayed put on a day at the pool when using it as sunscreen.

It (again) had my roommate marveling at how smooth and clear my complexion looked, and the combo of the PurePressed Base Mineral Foundation and Balance Hydration spray provided a perfect finisher. If even a foundation rookie like me can find my makeup match, that’s a pretty foolproof formula.